Yui to the Rescue! (Alternative to ALO)
by basho
Summary: Instead of helplessdamsel!Asuna stuck waiting for her knight in black leather to save her, Kirito has a stroke of genius and restores Yui, allowing her to directly help Asuna. Short little one-shot I wrote mostly because I don't like the character assassination of Asuna in ALO. (Only rated T because of mention of Sugou)


January 20, 2025

Slowly, Kazuto wiped the sleep from his eyes. He sat up and observed his little sister, Suguha, who fell asleep in his bed while comforting him the night before.

_"She's right,"_ he thought, _"I can't give up yet. I still have six more days until Asuna is forced into a marriage she doesn't want… but what am I capable of doing? I can't do anything in this world, I'm only human, it's not like I can just email myself inside of her Nervegear… wait…"_ Kirito grinned for what felt like the first time since escaping SAO. If he could pull this off, then he could save Asuna. Quickly moving to his computer, Kirito began sending out emails at a lightning speed. The one he was most nervous about was his email to Kikouka Seijirou, his contact in the SAO Case Victims Rescue Force, for if he chose not to cooperate then Kirito's plan would be hopeless. While waiting for the replies, Kirito went downstairs to prepare a light breakfast for himself and Sugu.

As Kazuto brought up a breakfast tray for two, Sugu was just waking up.

"Hey, Sugu, I brought up some breakfast. Thank you for your help last night, I think I've thought up a way to reach Asuna, and at the same time another very precious person to both her and me." Kazuto's smile turned wistful, and he went to check his emails. All three people replied… all three said yes! Grinning, Kazuto asked, "Sugu, how would you like to meet my two best friends from that world?" For the first time since bringing in the breakfast, Kirito looked at Sugu. Noting her wide eyes and flushed face, he chuckled. "There's no need to be so embarrassed, you used to do that all of the time, remember?"

"S-sure, brother, I would love to go meet your friends with you!" she stammered out, completely mortified that she had spent the night cuddling with her… brother? Cousin? Love interest? Sugu wasn't sure anymore.

* * *

When Kazuto and Sugu arrived at the Dicey Café, the other three were already present. Sitting at the bar were Klein (Tsuboi) and Agil (Andrew), chatting with Kikouka Seijirou who was leaning against it.

"Kazuto!" boomed out Andrew, "Great to see you. What can I do you for?"

"Heeeey buddy!" Tsuboi said, lightly pounding him on the back, "How's it going? Who's the pretty lady?"

"The pretty lady is my little sister Suguha, who is WAY too young for you, Klein," Kazuto replied in a flat tone as Sugu blushed. "Klein, Andrew, I'm going to need to call in a few favors if Seijirou here approves of my request. Seijirou, you read my email. Can you?"

"Well, getting you a copy of the SAO engines shouldn't be out of my reach, but it will be highly suspicious. I'll need to know exactly why you need them."

"Kazuto… are you trying to revive her?" Andrew asked in a worried tone.

"I thought you were going to wait until Asuna was back with us before restoring her, Kirito…" Klein said in a somber tone.

"I was… but… I got to thinking. What if I can save her and then link her into Asuna's NerveGear? Would she be able to bring Asuna back? I need to find out, and I was told yesterday… Asuna is in an arranged marriage, and they're going to force it on her conscious or not in six days. I need this to happen NOW, before they can set all of their plans in motion.

"Seijirou, I need copies of some of the SAO data so that I can revive an emotionally capable and highly adaptive AI by the name of Yui. She was very important to both Asuna and myself during SAO, and I believe that she can find and save Asuna. I just need enough data to create a sandbox of sorts with the help of some of the other survivors. Andrew, Klein, that's where I need your help. If I can get this data, I will need some of the program savvy SAO survivors to help me modify the code and make sure it's as safe as possible before bringing Yui into it. Are you guys willing to help me?"

Seijirou just smiled and handed Kazuto a flash drive. "Somehow, I knew it would be something like this. Good luck, mister Black Swordsman." With that, the government employee smirked and walked out.

"I'll call in the best team of programmers I know of who came out of the SAO incident… if I remember right, one of them even owes the three of you her husband's life." Andrew smiled and went to his laptop.

"The three of us? That would mean… Yulier? I bet Yui would love to see her again." Kazuto smiled.

Klein made an amused noise. "Dang, Kirito, could you ever go anywhere without saving someone's neck? I'll call in a couple of my guild buddies, they can help you get this done by the end of the night." As Tsuboi pulled out his phone, Sugu took the opportunity to catch Kazuto's attention.

"Um… Brother? Who was Yui?"

Giving a small smile in reply, Kazuto replied with, "Someone very important to both Asuna and myself. I think I'll wait until you meet her in person before I tell you more, okay?"

As Sugu gave a confused nod, Andrew and Tsuboi returned with their replies. A team of five programmers would be meeting at the Dicey Café at one, and they estimated the job to be finished by seven that night.

"Oh, and Kazuto? Go home. I know that if you stay here you'll just get frustrated and hover, so go home. I'll call you when it's ready to be picked up. Suguha, please make sure he listens. I think we all know how stubborn he is, but he might do more harm than good if he's here distracting people." Andrew gave a pleasant smile to Sugu.

Klein rested a hand on Kazuto's shoulder. "We'll get her back for you, Kirito. We'll help save them both. Now, shoo!" With his serious tone shifting back to his regular lighthearted one, "The second your sandbox is ready to be played in we'll let you know!"

* * *

That entire day, Kazuto was nearly shaking with anticipation. After having everything stripped away from him, he was finally going to get the two most important pieces back. After quite nearly bouncing off the walls for hours, his mother/aunt returned from work at around 5:30. When asked what happened, Sugu was the one to reply in an exasperated tone.

"Brother met with some SAO friends today and they're working on a program to restore some SAO program called Yui. They think it'll be done in the next two hours, but he won't say why this Yui is so important. He also thinks there's a chance she can wake up the girl he's been visiting somehow."

"If that's the case, why don't you help me in the kitchen and we'll make him his favorites for good luck?"

One well-made meal later, Kazuto was getting nervous. They had told him seven, and the time was now 7:15. He knew that it was tentative, but… 7:20… 7:24… 7:27…

"Kazuto, staring at your phone every other minute isn't going to make them finish any faster. Why don't you go take a nap or something?"

"I can't. I need to get this tonight, if I go to sleep I might not wake up until after—"

In mid-sentence, Kazuto's phone got a call from the Dicey Café.

"Hello? Andrew? Is it done? Will it work?" Kazuto fired off.

"Kazuto, calm down. Where's that ever-cool head of yours gone? Yes, it's done, and we even tested its interactions with some normal AIs going out of pattern, there was no retaliation from the system. Everything went perfectly, I'm sorry it took longer than we thought. You can come pick it up whenever you're ready."

"Andrew, tell everyone that I owe them big time. I'll be there as soon as I make a few calls."

"Sugu, mom, could you come with me to the hospital tomorrow? There's someone… no, two someones I would like you to meet."

"Of course we will, so long as it's okay with the Yuukis," Kazuto's mother figure replied with an understanding smile.

"Right!" Kazuto searched through his contacts to find the Yuuki residence, a number Asuna's father gave him in case Asuna woke during one of his visits.

"Mr. Yuuki? It's Kirigaya Kazuto. I think I have a way to wake Asuna up, would it be possible for your family and mine to meet in her room tomorrow at noon?"

"How certain are you that she will wake? I cannot afford to leave work unless you're entirely sure this will work."

"I'm almost completely positive it will work, and if it doesn't work then at the very least we will learn where her mind is being held."

After a lengthy pause and a weary sigh from Asuna's father, he replied, "Very well. We'll see you tomorrow."

"They said yes. I'm off to get the program I need, I'll be back later!"

Kazuto ran all the way to the Dicey Café and back, which turned out to be both a good and a bad thing. It was bad because he had just recently finished his physical therapy, and wasn't yet in good enough shape to handle such a jog. It was good because if he wasn't so exhausted then he probably wouldn't be able to sleep. As it was, he barely had time to set his alarm before passing out on his bed while clutching a flash drive to his heart like a lifeline.

* * *

The next morning, he ended up sleeping through his alarm. Instead of waking at nine as anticipated, he woke at a little after ten. This left him with far too little time to test out his new program, so he wound up hesitantly packing up his computer and NerveGear to take to the hospital with the program untested and Yui unrestored. When it came time to leave, his mother and Suguha were both ready and waiting with tentative smiles on their faces; today could be the last day Kazuto was depressed and stuck waiting.

The Kirigaya family arrived a short while before the Yuuki family, which gave Kazuto the time to set up his computer and the program given to him last night. Just as the program finished loading, the three Yuukis walked in. Asuna's older brother Kouichirou led the way, closely followed by her father and mother, Shouzou and Kyouko.

"Ah, just in time," Kazuto said, barely sparing them a glance. This resulted in a raised eyebrow from Shouzou, an angry glare from Kyouko, and impatiently crossed arms from Kouichirou. Kazuto paid them little mind and connected his NerveGear to his computer setup. After it synched, he opened up its contents in the sandbox program designed for it. Screenshots, audio clips, and video highlights flashed across the screen, but Kazuto didn't even notice them. His entire being was focused on one line.

"Rouge Program - Mental Health Counseling Program Version 1, Yui," Kazuto read the file name with a smile, a single happy tear falling down his face as he commanded the program to start.

"Rouge program?" "Mental health counseling?" were heard from the Yuukis and Kazuto's mother, but only Sugu saw the tear. _"So, this Yui is just as important to brother as Asuna, isn't it? I wonder what exactly it is…"_

A light effect took place inside the sandbox program, and suddenly there was a little girl of about six years with long dark hair down her back wearing a simple white dress staring out. Tweaking the settings so that it would send her video from the camera and audio from the microphone, Kazuto asked, "Yui? Can you see and hear me?"

Yui jumped and looked around frantically, until she found Kazuto's face smiling down at her from the screen to the outside world.

"…Papa? PAPA! Papa it's you! You saved me! Thank you, Papa! Where's Mama? You made it out of SAO? Tell me all about it!"

Kazuto gave a watery grin at his hyperactive daughter as their audience looked on in shock. "Everyone, I would like you to meet Asuna and my's daughter, Yui. We adopted her at the beginning of the second week of our honeymoon."

After a collective "WHAT?!", Kazuto continued. "Yui, behind me are Mama's and Papa's families. I'll introduce you in a little bit, but we need to talk first. Yui, Mama didn't come back with us. Something went wrong with the log-out process and Asuna and three hundred others ended up trapped somewhere. I was hoping you could help us find out if I attached mama's NerveGear to one of this computer's terminals?"

Giving a salute, Yui said, "Aye, papa! I'll help you get mama back and we can be a family again!"

"Thank you, Yui. And Yui, please be careful. If you think that wherever she is will hurt you, come back right away, promise?" Kazuto asked as he plugged in Asuna's NerveGear to his computer.

"I promise I'll be careful! Just leave it to Yui!" A glowing doorway appeared in her hosting program, and Yui ran into it, straight into Asuna's NerveGear.

In the stunned silence that followed, Kazuto awkwardly said, "I guess you all have some questions, huh? Would it be okay for us to wait until Yui gets back? Asuna's way better with the whole talking thing than I am, she'd be able to explain it better…"

"Honeymoon?" Asuna's mother asked in a dangerous tone. "HONEYMOON? And when the HELL did you get permission to wed my daughter?"

"I got permission to wed her when I proposed and she said yes," Kazuto replied in a stiff tone. "If you want anything more on the subject, we can talk after she is with us again."

After a long and potent silence, Sugu spoke up. "Um… brother… I thought Yui was just a program? She seemed like she… I dunno… had real emotions…" Sugu stammered out.

"In SAO, there was no such thing as 'just a program'. Every single human AI had some emotional capacity, but Yui was by far the most complex one. I don't have any idea how Kayaba managed it, but Yui is the only program of her type, she has just as wide an emotional range as any person. Unless it's too far out of her parameters, she is indistinguishable from any normal human child. Add that to her learning capacity and adaptability, and it's nearly impossible to catch her behaving more as an AI than a daughter."

Asuna's brother chose to speak up then. "You said you got married to her. Did you do it properly or just a casual request of convenience?"

Kazuto scoffed. "You think that Asuna is the kind of girl who would accept that kind of thing? She's a strong woman, never let anyone boss her around. If I would have tried that, I would have found myself stranded in a high level dungeon in an instant. Here, I have some screenshots of our wedding if you want to look." Fishing through the NerveGear files, Kazuto pulled out the pictures of their wedding. "It was a simple affair. We wanted to be left alone for a while, so we just messaged our friends that we were marrying and made ourselves untraceable. The little log cabin behind us is the home we bought to live in for our honeymoon… We were planning on staying there the rest of the game, but then I ended up jumping the gun by 25 floors and taking down Kayaba early." Kazuto shrugged, and just then Yui returned.

"I found Mama! It's weird, Mama is trapped in another game that uses all of SAO's data but isn't SAO. I think the game was called ALO?" A gasp was heard from Sugu and Shouzou, but Yui continued. "I talked to Mama a lot, she was happy to see me! But Papa, Mama is sad, really really really sad. She asked me to record something for Papa, can I show it?" At a nod, Yui concentrated and the recording appeared, and everyone gasped at her condition while Kazuto's hands balled into fists, his knuckles turning white.

_Asuna was chained up inside a golden birdcage, wearing a shirt that covers almost nothing and a long white skirt that had a slit running all the way up it. "Kirito, Yui told me you sent her to me. I don't know how to tell you how grateful I am. I was starting to worry that you wouldn't be able to find me, Kirito. I don't know exactly where I am, other than trapped up here on top of a big tree. I managed to find out who is holding me here, and what they want… The man holding me hostage, his name is Sugou. He is a vile scumbag who works at my father's company. He's been holding 300 SAO survivors hostage while performing experiments on their minds, seeing if he can learn how to rewrite memories and emotions. Sugou claims he is 80% done with this disgusting research, and when he is finished he is going to erase my mind and make me into his toy… Kirito, please, save me. He's tried more than once to recreate the Floor 12 Incident, and I've managed to stop him so far but he's getting more persistent. I managed to steal an administrator's card while trying to escape once, but I don't think I can try again. If you think she can handle it, I can give the card and the location of a GM terminal to Yui. I believe in our daughter just as I believe in you, Kirito. YUI! Go, now, Sugou is coming! –cut-_

Kazuto was shaking in rage, and had been since the words Floor Twelve Incident came out of the recording. "Yui, honey, can you monitor Mama's status from here and go in and help her once she's alone again? We have to talk about adult things now," Kazuto said in as kind a voice as he could manage.

"Okay, Papa, I'll do my best. I love you!"

"I love you too, Yui, and tell Mama that I love her and will see her soon."

After closing off the microphone's connection, it took everything in Kazuto to not explode in anger.

"Kazuto… what was the Floor Twelve Incident?" asked his mother in as soft a voice as she could manage.

Voice quivering in barely suppressed rage, Kazuto replied, "By the time we passed floor ten, people were finally settling in to life in Aincrad and those not focusing on clearing the game ended up returning to old routines. The problem is that not all of those routines were honorable. One such player was a… a serial rapist in this world. He would bind and gag female players after hitting them with a paralysis poison so that they couldn't activate the harassment signal and send him to prison, and he did this five times on Floor 12 before getting caught. Asuna saying that was her way of telling us what that scum Sugou has been trying to do without Yui catching on."

"I… I am going to go to work and see what I can do about this…" Asuna's father said, but Kirito promptly cut him off.

"Don't, not yet. Nothing you can do will do anything beyond potentially causing him to flip the switch and end the lives of everyone still trapped in there. Until Yui succeeds in saving Asuna and everyone else, Sugou has all of the power in this situation. We don't know what kind of backup plans he has in place are… All we can do now is put faith in my daughter and my wife to get through this and come back to us."

With that, a somber silence fell upon the six of them as they waited for Yui's return, though the face Asuna's mother made upon Kazuto naming Asuna as his wife made her appear to be almost unable to keep herself quiet.

Finally, Suguha broke it. "Brother… were you… were you happy in SAO?"

Kazuto's face assumed a contemplative expression. "Huh… for the first fifty or so floors, I would say I wasn't. There were too many tragedies, especially on the first, 25th, and 30th floors, and… During the clearing of the 30th floor something went wrong that I would rather not talk about. After that, I didn't really do anything but hunt and level up for a long time. But… after the 56th Floor, I started to let people in again. Well… I suppose let isn't the proper word for it. Klein conned me into helping his group out from time to time, Liz would follow me out item grinding on occasion, and Asuna… heh. I remember quite a few occasions where Asuna would grab my hand and force me to hit the party accept button. Now that I think about it, Klein and Liz making me join them was probably Asuna's doing. After that day we spent together on Floor 56, I guess she started to worry about me quite a bit. By the time Asuna, Klein, and I took down the 74th boss on our own, I would say I was content. Then, the day after that some… other circumstances made me decide to act on my emotions and propose to Asuna. When we got married and left the front lines for those 15 days, I can say I was truly happy. The three days Yui was with us were nothing short of perfect, and while the day after the system tried to delete her was depressing, we had each other and we knew we would see her again. So… at the end of SAO, for that last month or so, I was truly happy."

"I'm glad," a weak voice emanated from the hospital bed they were gathered around. In a flash, Kazuto was sitting next to her and holding her hand, attention divided between the screen Yui just appeared on cheering and his beloved.

"Are you okay?" Kazuto asked in a subdued tone.

Making eye contact with him, she slowly removed her NerveGear and set it beside her, then weakly grabbed his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. "I will be. You saved me again, Kirito. You and Yui saved me, and we're finally together…"

Holding her tightly, Kazuto spoke to everyone in the room. "Mr. Yuuki, now would be a good time to move against Sugou. Preferably before whatever research data he was gathering is destroyed so that he can be put behind bars for sure. Mrs. Yuuki, would you mind informing the nurses Asuna is awake and ask them to check on the status of the other three hundred? Sugu, why don't you, mom, and Kouichirou get acquainted with Yui? I need to talk to Asuna without eavesdroppers for a little while, I'm very sorry."

Asuna gave a smile that Kirito thought brightened the room and nodded at his words, making everyone hastily comply. "Kirito, is something wrong?" she practically whispered, her throat parched. Kazuto held a glass of water to her lips and helped her drink.

"Since I came back from SAO, I've only told one person more than fleeting bits of information of what happened on the inside. I wanted to know if you think we should tell our families our stories. Your mother clearly doesn't want me around you, and I was hoping that sharing our story would change her mind."

Upon hearing that, her expression hardened, but held a fearful edge. "If… if you think it will help, then we should tell them. But…"

"You won't have to talk about anything after the final boss fight. Not yet, I promise you I'll get you more time before you have to talk about that."

Giving him as tight a hug as a girl just exiting a two year coma could, she smiled. "Thank you, Kirito."

Kazuto smiled and held her protectively until the nurse finally came in with Asuna's mother. During her checkup, he hovered by her bedside and emitted a proud smile as he saw his mother, sister, and potential future brother-in-law getting along with Yui. Seeing Kazuto's smile, Kouichirou came up and gave Asuna's hand a light squeeze with a guilty look, then stood with him.

"It should have been me trapped in there, you know. I was the one who was the beta tester, I was the gamer."

"You're wrong there," Kazuto murmured back. "Asuna, she belonged in SAO. Without her, coming this far never would have been possible. She was the best normal player, did you know that? Number three player overall, but I had a very powerful unique skill given to me and Heathcliff was a hacker of sorts. Don't blame yourself, because I know she doesn't. In fact, when you get the chance to talk to her one on one, 1000 yen says she'll thank you for going on that business trip on launch day. She's come a long way from the Asuna you once knew, I can tell you that much," Kazuto finished with a playful smile. Before Asuna's brother could retort, her father walked in.

"He's arrested, they're closing down ALO now to examine how bad what he was doing was. I don't know if the game will go back up later or not, it depends on how public this scandal goes." Sitting down on the corner of Asuna's bed, he looked at his daughter. "Can you ever forgive me for trusting him?"

"I don't blame you, father. You had no way of telling how rotten he really was, he hid it too well." Suppressing a shudder, Asuna continued. "Kirito told me he thought it might be a good idea if we told the five of you everything our family of three went through in SAO. Do… do you want to listen?"

After getting four yesses and such an offended look from Asuna's mother it was as if listening to such tales would harm her, Kazuto and Asuna began to share their stories. It was a long tale, two years of tragedy and the occasional happy moment. They shared everything that came to mind. Kirito ditching Klein and nearly getting MPK'd later that night, saving Asuna from herself and teaching her more about the game, the hatred for Beta Testers, Kirito being the first and most successful of the Beaters, Asuna's friendship with Lizbeth, the failure of the Aincrad Liberation Front on the 25th Floor, the formation of the Knights of the Blood Oath, Kirito's failure to protect Sachi and the rest of the Moonlit Black Cats, investigating crimes, the Ragout Rabbit, Floor 74…

Throughout their tales, Yui was showing various editions of the primary newspaper of Aincrad, _The Daily Argo_. When Floor 74 came up, Yui ended up displaying two editions; one with the headline "Black Swordsman Has Unique Skill Dual-Wielding?" and the other with "The Sword Dance of Black and White Eliminate Boss Single-handedly and Save 15 Players!"

"Sword Dance of Black and White?" Sugu gave them their first interruption since the story began.

Kazuto and Asuna shared a look at that while Yui giggled. Kazuto spoke up, "Apparently, during every boss fight we both fought in our movements were so synergized that it looked like a dance. I had never really noticed it until people started commenting on it. I distinctly remember several jibes from Liz on the topic, saying we complimented each other better than most married couples she's ever seen, and that was before we even became all that close," he recalled with a smile.

After that, the couple finished their story. While little was left, the events from clearing Floor 74 to clearing the game took just as long to tell as the events leading up to then… mostly due to Asuna's tangents about how sweet he was during their honeymoon and describing nearly everything they did that was rated PG or below in far more detail than Kazuto was even capable of remembering, even with the pictures Yui had displayed.

Finally, their tale came to a close. Kirito studied everyone's expressions toward him carefully. Truth be told, he was afraid of what his sister, Asuna, and Asuna's mother might think of him. Many events he shared today hadn't come up before with Asuna, and she probably learned a lot about him. Sugu and he had been getting very close in the two and a half months, and the news that his blade had ended four lives and his inaction had ended many more might push that away. Asuna's mother... if he was honest with himself, Kazuto didn't care in the slightest what she thought of him, but if she was still opposed to him spending time with Asuna then sharing their tale had been for nothing, losing their secrets of that both wonderful and terrible world would have been a waste.

Asuna's and Yui's eyes both shined with their love for him. They didn't care about the new things they had learned; he was still their Kirito. Sugu and Kouichirou were looking at the couple in wonder, apparently amazed that they had gone through everything they did and still come out sane and happy. Kazuto's mother and Asuna's father had an expression that Kazuto himself had become familiar with today and those three days in SAO with Yui: parental pride. Finally, Kazuto met eyes with Asuna's mother and he was shocked in what he saw there. There was no pride, no happiness… but none of the hostility from earlier. Her expression was defeated; it seemed as if she recognized it would be impossible to keep the couple apart after everything they've already went through together.

Kazuto let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding, and as the air left his lungs it felt as if all his tension and worries were gone and everything was right in his world once more.

"Mama?" Yui spoke up, "Um… when we have dinner next, can Papa and I get the extra spicy sandwiches?" The way Kazuto perked up at the idea had most people in the room laughing rather loudly.

* * *

One month later

Today was the last day of Asuna's physical therapy, and her father and Kazuto had come to escort her out of the hospital. As they were preparing to leave her hospital room, she shot a timid look at Kazuto, as if she was afraid of what his reaction might be. "Father?" Asuna spoke in a nervous tone, something she had rarely done since waking.

"Yes, Asuna?"

"Um… your company. It has copies of SAO's data, right?" Fighting hard to keep an earnest and hopeful tone out of her voice, Asuna sat up in her hospital bed and looked her father in the eyes. She needed him to know how important this was to her, and she couldn't possibly back down now.

Looking at his daughter in as stern as a manner as he could manage Shouzou said, "We do, yes. Since the fiasco with Sugou went public we haven't really touched anything on the VR front, as we were hoping that ALO would just fizzle out…"

"NO!" Asuna shouted, causing both her father and Kazuto to jump. "I… I wanted to ask you to do something for me… for us. I was talking to Yui when Kirito brought her last, and she's getting homesick. Since we know ALO agrees with her, could… could you have somebody patch Aincrad into ALO?"

Kazuto gave her a searching look, trying to discern everything she was feeling. Satisfied with what he saw, he held her hand. "Sir, I think that is a wonderful idea. Every day I find myself missing our home out on Floor 22, and I can tell that Yui is getting far too bored with nothing to do on my desktop. If nothing else, think of all of the customers that will buy into ALO out of the morbid curiosity, wanting to find out more of the death game that took so many lives. Surely the profits of the patch would be more than worth the minimal effort to apply it."

"Home… The both of you, you feel that that bit of data is more your home than any place in this world, don't you?" Receiving a nod from them both, he sighed. "I'll see what I can do. No promises, though, most people in my company no longer want anything to do with VRRMMOs."

With satisfied smiles, Kazuto helped Asuna out of bed and handed her cane to her. Shakily, she led the way to the entrance of the room where a nurse was waiting with a wheelchair. Kazuto eagerly took the duty from the nurse, absently playing with his beloved's hair as they approached the elevator. She looked back at him, catching his eyes with her smiling face. _"We made it,"_ her expression seemed to shout at him in utter glee. His playful smile seemed to reassure her, _"We've barely made it anywhere yet. This is still the beginning of our life together."_


End file.
